


A Heart Divided

by VeronicaRich



Series: Death-Proof [4]
Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-31
Updated: 2017-05-31
Packaged: 2018-11-07 04:01:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11050896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VeronicaRich/pseuds/VeronicaRich
Summary: Wherein Elizabeth and Jack figure out where Will's various emotions may be leading them.





	A Heart Divided

**Author's Note:**

> Part 4 of a 7-story series; originally published in 2007.

Jack was at a loss to understand why Will had felt the need to say anything at all to his wife – after all, he’d been the one to cut off any further illicit activity, to deny Jack the second time he’d come to Will, the _Pearl_ finally under his command again. Will had received the mortal captain on _Dutchman’s_ deck and at his table readily enough, but had made it clear further advances upon his person were not welcome.

_“No.” The_ Dutchman’s _master shook his head and walked away as Jack invaded his personal space, tried to back him against the table in his cabin once again. “Not this time.”_

_“What time, then?” Jack asked, casually continuing to shrug off his greatcoat._

_“You know perfectly well what I mean, Captain.”_

_“Formal, now?” Jack laughed, pulling the rings from his right hand to drop into the pouch on his belt. He remembered how Will hated the feel of them along his hard cock. “Bit of roleplaying, I see.”_

_“This isn’t a game.” Will faced Jack from several feet away, eyes angry … and something else. “You’re being far too casual.”_

_“And you’re bein’ far too serious, mate.” Jack waggled his bare fingers in a show of good faith. “‘Tis only a spot o’ relief, eh?”_

“Why _him_?” Elizabeth was asking, facing Will but gesturing toward Jack, who was on the other side of the large, long table in his wardroom, lounging near the porthole and letting the young couple duke out their differences.

“Would you rather it have been a woman?” The lad had a good point, and Jack could see Elizabeth was chagrined for an immediate answer. “Calypso, perhaps?”

“Don’t you dare call her into this!” Elizabeth hissed, dropping her voice and setting her jaw. “I imagine she’d take far too much delight in it all.” Her expression darkened. “Or is that just me who has to mind where I hike up my skirts, then, in order for you to be preserved?”

Will passed a hand over his face, and lowered his voice accordingly. “No, of course not. I made a mistake, didn’t I? Am I not still human – somehow? My intentions otherwise have always been honest, even when my methods weren’t. It’s exceedingly difficult being stuck on that ship with nobody there my equal in rank … and yet knowing everything more than I do.”

“Are you saying if Jack hadn’t shown up, you would’ve taken up with one of those?”

“It’s precisely because he’s _not_ one of them, that I considered it at all.” Jack noticed they were both studiously ignoring his presence in the room, as if he were a painting on the far wall. “I knew he’d leave; I knew he wouldn’t stick around. I counted on it, don’t you see?”

Astute Elizabeth regarded Will sideways. “What if he did, Will? Are you that tempted?”

To Jack’s half-surprise, Will didn’t deny it right away. Instead, he tried to take his wife’s hand, which she pointedly refused. “That’s fair,” he acknowledged, taking a step back. “I didn’t want to be reminded of what I’d done, what I’d become in my desperation. It’s you I missed, Elizabeth; you, I couldn’t help thinking of.”

_Oh yes, Jack thought sarcastically, Will had certainly been all about the wife when he’d been half-on the table, long legs splayed, grinding out his new lover’s name over and over while he’d cupped and caressed the younger captain’s balls. “Yeah … oh, Jack … rub right there, pull on … Jack … now stroke it; put your fist around, and-” A sharp intake of breath, and a ragged exhalation when Jack obliged._

“Will.” She shut her eyes and shook her head. “You think me blind or stupid? You two have had a … a connection, at least since I asked if you knew what side he was on.” For the first time, she looked over at Jack. “He just smiled at me,” she explained to the pirate, anger clear in her dark eyes. “Grinned, really, like he didn’t care if he couldn’t figure it out when I asked.”

Jack said nothing, arms crossed so he gripped his elbows, but did not lower his gaze from hers. They’d played out this silent contest of wills before – perhaps more accurately, of Will – though they’d never given their animosity a label or an open acknowledgement of its source, and no matter what _she_ might admit, he wasn’t about to give in now and spoil the game.

“I didn’t know how to answer your question,” Will interrupted, drawing her attention back to him while still avoiding eye contact with Jack. “Besides, you and I both know by now that he’s only on his own side, for his own interests, and to hell with everyone else.”

_Ah, to hell. The boy thought he knew the hot place, but Jack didn’t think he had a clue, even if he did spend his days ferrying a good number of passengers to its borders. He hadn’t watched himself knocked back, threatened, then fatally stabbed. He hadn’t had to watch the life draining from his limp, drenched body and make the hardest decision of Jack’s entire life – not to give up the heart and immortality, but in doing so, knowing he was losing the very person he saved to the woman who’d gone so far as to kill him in their rivalry. Moreover, Will hadn’t actually been _carried off_ to hell in the belly of a beastie._

_Yeah, I’m a real selfish bastard,_ Jack mused.

Suddenly, her expression darkened and she rounded the table, advancing on Jack until she was just a few paces away. “I’d knock you flat if I thought it’d do any good,” she growled, “or chain you to another mast, if I thought he wouldn’t dive right after you.” She pointed toward Will as she said it. “Why didn’t you just stay away and leave us alone? You don’t think we have enough challenges with this curse?”

Quietly, he spoke. “I was almost dead th’ first time he came ‘cross me. Perhaps you ought t’ be asking your loving husband, instead, why he didn’ simply let th’ sea claim me and then pack me into th’ hold to be taken to the Elysian Fields with ever’one else.”

Instead of turning her back on Will, however, his flip explanation darkened her mood. With no preamble, she hauled a fist out of nowhere and clocked Jack across the jaw, knocking him off-balance and stumbling back a couple of steps. He briefly saw stars, and as soon as he could think again, started laughing, weakly – he’d always wondered what would set her off enough to slap him, but he should’ve also realized no indignant womanly slap would ever properly express the passion of Elizabeth Swann Turner, Pirate King. “Not sure I deserved that,” he finally managed, working his jaw to see if it would move. “I did let ye _murder_ me, after all.”

Instead of allaying any tension, the comment sparked sudden tears in her eyes, underlaid by an obvious cold fury. She turned partway to stop Will, who had started around the table after her. “Don’t,” she warned, finger aimed at him.

“I told you about it so we could talk it out,” he stubbornly persisted, chin up. Jack watched, throat caught on the man’s defiant expression, and was surprised at his own relief that even with all the apologizing in the world, Will was not going to fall at his wife’s feet and beg forgiveness at any cost. “It’s past, Elizabeth. He’s been on the ship twice since – nothing more’s taken place. You’re the one who’s always had my heart.”

_Sticky hand sliding up to grip Will’s hip, Jack’s head slumped against Will’s shoulder after they’d spent in turns. His heavy breathing covered a fearful, hollow feeling that had set in with not knowing how to handle the aftermath of finally giving in to several years of forestalled sexual release – rarely had he ever waited if he truly wanted to swive with someone. He stayed that way, recovering his breath and listening to Will’s even out, until he felt the large hand splay on the middle of his back._

_Raising his head, he came eye-to-eye with Will, who regarded him with a sort of wonder, rather than contempt or anger. He watched the dark hazel eyes studying him, trying to make sense of what might be behind his own all-too-unpractised expression … and felt a tug low in his belly. He wondered if Will felt it too, if that’s what had made him lean in impulsively and get very close, the tip of his nose hovering just under Jack’s, and whisper, “It’s been a while.”_

“You don’t understand.” Her voice was up slightly, and she advanced on Will, pushing him back as he went – his hands came up to rest on her arms, but he didn’t force her to stop or turn away. She finally stopped when they were almost on the other side again, and looked up into his face, shaking her head. “You really don’t, do you?”

“I messed up, yes, Elizabeth; I admitted that. But-”

“It’s not only mine!” she interrupted, then dropped her voice. “In the chest, your heart – I couldn’t figure out why. It’s been different.” She glanced back at Jack, her expression somewhere between the fury and uneasy admission … and somehow, he knew she understood what had happened almost as clearly as if she’d been there herself.

_They’d stuck only to a mutual handjob, undressing enough to lean together against the table and come all over each other’s bellies and Jack’s fingers, Will’s head back as he keened and groaned, and Jack’s curses muffled against his chin or jaw by turns. He knew something was different the moment he felt Will’s mouth on his now, parting his lips to cover Jack’s._

_For one minute, Jack deliberately forgot who he was, Will’s responsibility to a wife and son, his own love of a ship, and the fact that they had seemed to make careers of having contempt for one another. Instead, he kissed Will back, their mouths harder and more insistent. He enveloped that other tongue inside the roll of his own, dimly aware Will was pulling him closer and that he had threaded his clean hand into Will’s hair after dragging the headscarf off over the long, curling waves. The need he’d ignored for touching Will for so many years flared, flamed between them, and Jack tilted his head, deepening the kiss as he pulled Will off the edge of the table. “Bed,” he whispered, voice raspy._

_“Yes.” The single word ached between them, the way Will said it. “I want those hands-”_

_“Oh, yeah, love.” He rubbed Will’s hip and buttock while they kissed. “God, I need t’ fuck you.”_

_“I need …” Will trailed off, and when he drew away, eyes trying to focus as if inward on his own brain, Jack had the sinking feeling he’d never get this chance again. “No – I can’t.”_

_“Will?”_

_“I’m married, Jack.” He pulled away._

_“Will.”_

_“I love her. I love her, and I don’t want to do this to her.” He seemed genuinely upset. “I can’t divide that between you two.”_

“How, different?” Will asked her.

_“Who’s askin’ you to?” Jack demanded. “I was just after a good fuck or three.”_

_Will fixed him with a piercing, guilty look. “I’m not who I used to be,” he answered. “I know now, Jack – I see things in people, even if they don’t want them noticed.”_

_Defensive, Jack turned his expression stony. “You don’t see near as much as ye think to, Captain Turner.”_

_“Jack, I am so sorry …”_

“It’s _not_ just mine anymore.” Elizabeth blinked a couple of times and with apparent frustration, reached up to dash the heel of her hand against an eye. “For some months, now – there’s no longer a steady beat when I put my ear to the chest. I’m not certain how to explain; it’s like instead, there’s two in there … or maybe just one, with two distinctive, different rhythms.” Will looked stricken, and Jack almost felt sorry for him.

Almost. He was surprised how much anger still floated around him, that he thought he’d shrugged off all those months ago. Sympathy for Will was misplaced and a dangerous thing, to boot.

She sighed. “I have to go,” she insisted, pushing past Will and leaving the room.

Despite his better judgment, Jack called after him as Will started to follow. “Interestin’ turn of events, _Captain._ ”

Will’s posture stiffened and he didn’t even look back at Jack as he turned his head to his shoulder in the pirate’s general direction. “Go to hell, Sparrow.”

He waited until Will was gone, then arched an eyebrow and said, rather quietly, “Again?”


End file.
